Which domain extensions do people prefer? How do these
preferences vary by country? This article reports the results of a poll of
domain extension preference by country of residence conducted from May through
October, 2003 by Domain Name Journal and the DomainState
forum. Approximately 133 people from 34 different countries participated.
This poll has limitations that we will discuss, but it does measure the
extension preferences of domain registrants and developers in a manner that has
not been done elsewhere and it produces some interesting results.

The main page of the poll linked to pages for
individual countries to measure extension preference by country. The poll
asked the following question -- "Which extensions are worthwhile for
registering and/or developing domains -- considering the quality of domains
available and the prices to obtain those domains?" Respondents could
select one or more of the following extensions: .COM, .NET, .ORG, .INFO, .BIZ,
.TV, .CC, .WS and the country code extension for their country of
residence. We originally included .US and .CN extensions regardless of
participant country, but decided not to include them in the analysis to avoid
murky issues of registration of country extensions by
non-country-residents.

LIMITATIONS:

The first limitation of this poll concerns
question wording. We could have asked a question that does not address
domain availability or price, such as -- "Which extensions are worthwhile for
registering and/or developing?" However, using a car analogy, this would
be like asking -- "Which car would you prefer? Mercedes Benz or Honda?" --
without mentioning the price difference. People would probably respond --
"If you are giving a car away, I'll take the Benz" -- but this response ignoring
price does not shed much light on real world markets because price matters in
the real world. A more meaningful question is -- "Which car do you prefer
given its price? Mercedes Benz or Honda?" Answers to a question that
includes price give more insight into real world purchases. For this
reason, we explicitly included price and availability in our question. A
simple question that ignores real differences in price is not ideal, but a
question that considers differences in price and availability is not ideal
either due to its complexity. The difficulty in balancing these concerns
in question wording is one limitation of this poll.

The second limitation of the poll concerns
possible bias in the population sampled. Members of a domain forum, mainly
domain investors and developers, probably do not represent the general
population or even all domain registrants. They are likely to be much more
informed about new extensions and willing to take risks on new extensions.
If one wants a representative sample of the general population, then this
population and the results of this poll are probably biased toward new domain
extensions. On the other hand, one could view a population with
above-average expertise concerning valuation of a scarce commodity as a
preferable population for evaluating future value of that commodity. For
example, if one wanted to assess the future value of mineral or transmission
bandwidth rights, perhaps one would prefer a survey of specialized industry
experts over a survey of the general population? From that perspective,
perhaps the knowledgeable population surveyed could be viewed as a strength of
the poll rather than a limitation?

The third limitation concerns sample size.
This poll would be better and the results more powerful with 1,330 respondents
instead of 133. Individual results for countries with only a few
respondents are not very accurate. However, the results of 133 people from
34 countries are probably better in aggregate than anecdotal evidence or no data
at all.

RESULTS

Detailed poll results are shown in the following
table. The numeric columns show the percentage of votes for each extension
by respondents for each country. "Country Code" is the domain
extension for a respondent's country of residence (such as .US for United
States, .CA for Canada, etc). The last column shows the number of
respondents for the country (estimated by the maximum number of votes for any
extension within that country). Countries are listed in descending order
of number of respondents. For example, of the 44 respondents from the
United States, 77% selected their country code (.US) as being worthwhile and
100% selected .COM as being worthwhile.

Table: Percentage of Country Respondents
Selecting Each Extension with
Countries Sorted by Number (N=) of Respondents

Country:

Country Code

COM

NET

ORG

INFO

BIZ

TV

CC

WS

N=

United States

77%

100%

61%

32%

50%

32%

0%

0%

2%

44

Canada

100%

94%

29%

29%

24%

6%

0%

0%

0%

17

United Kingdom

100%

73%

45%

27%

64%

45%

0%

0%

0%

11

Germany

100%

89%

44%

33%

89%

33%

0%

0%

0%

9

Australia

100%

100%

100%

25%

25%

25%

0%

0%

0%

4

Netherlands

100%

100%

100%

75%

75%

25%

25%

0%

25%

4

Norway

75%

100%

50%

25%

75%

0%

25%

0%

0%

4

China

100%

100%

50%

0%

50%

50%

0%

0%

0%

2

Croatia

100%

100%

100%

0%

50%

50%

0%

0%

0%

2

Denmark

50%

50%

50%

50%

100%

50%

0%

0%

0%

2

France

50%

50%

50%

0%

100%

50%

50%

0%

0%

2

Greece

50%

100%

50%

50%

50%

0%

0%

0%

0%

2

India

50%

100%

50%

0%

100%

100%

0%

0%

0%

2

Ireland

100%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

2

South Korea

0%

50%

0%

50%

50%

100%

0%

0%

0%

2

Malaysia

0%

100%

50%

0%

50%

0%

50%

0%

0%

2

Russia

100%

100%

0%

0%

50%

0%

0%

0%

0%

2

Singapore

50%

100%

50%

50%

100%

50%

0%

0%

0%

2

Taiwan

100%

100%

0%

50%

50%

0%

50%

0%

50%

2

Turkey

0%

100%

0%

50%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

2

Belgium

100%

100%

0%

100%

100%

100%

0%

0%

0%

1

Finland

100%

100%

100%

0%

100%

0%

0%

0%

0%

1

Iceland

0%

0%

0%

0%

100%

0%

0%

0%

0%

1

Italy

100%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

1

Japan

100%

100%

100%

100%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

1

Mexico

100%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

1

New Zealand

0%

100%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

1

Philippines

100%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

1

Poland

100%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

1

Portugal

100%

100%

100%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

1

Saudi Arabia

0%

100%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

1

Sweden

0%

100%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

1

Switzerland

100%

100%

0%

0%

100%

0%

0%

0%

0%

1

Thailand

100%

100%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

1

AVERAGE

71%

77%

35%

22%

46%

21%

6%

0%

2%

4

WEIGHTED AVE

80%

89%

47%

29%

50%

26%

4%

0%

2%

133

The "AVERAGE" row (second to last) shows the
average percentage of votes for each extension across all countries, where each
country has equal weight. The last row, "WEIGHTED AVE," shows the
percentage of votes for each extension for all 133 respondents, effectively
weighting each country by the number of country respondents.

Based on the "WEIGHTED AVE" row, the main result
of the study is four overall tiers of domain extension worth. The first
tier includes .COM (89%) and country code extension within country (80%).
The second tier is .INFO (50%) and .NET (47%). The third tier is .ORG
(29%) and .BIZ (26%). The fourth tier is .TV (4%) and .WS (2%). A
last extension, .CC, received no votes. Having said this about tiers
overall, there is some variation across countries.

A second result is the relative popularity of
.INFO (89% and equal to .COM) in Germany and several other European countries
compared to the global weighted average for .INFO (50%). This is
consistent with anecdotal accounts of high .INFO sales prices and registrations
in Germany.

A third result is the relative dominance of .CA
(100%) and .COM (94%) in Canada. Among the countries with many
respondents, Canada seems to be the most conservative with respect to breadth of
extensions. In other words, if you try to sell an .INFO or .BIZ to
Canadians, they are likely to say -- "Eh?" At the other end of the spectrum,
people in the Netherlands, Norway, and Denmark seem to value a wide breadth of
extensions.

CONCLUSION

This poll asked domain discussion forum members
how worthwhile extensions are for domain registration and/or development --
considering the quality of domains available and the prices needed to obtain
those domains. In this context, "COM is King" still holds true overall, but
country code extensions are often equivalent within their respective
countries. Also in this context, among the new extensions introduced by
ICANN during the past couple years, .INFO has moved up next to .NET and .BIZ has
moved up next to .ORG.

There is considerable variation among counties in
the relative evaluation of domains. Some countries are relatively
conservative in their focus on .COM and country-code extension, while other
countries are more receptive to a wider breadth of extensions. As with
stock analysts' projections of earnings per share, there are no guarantees
concerning the future. This poll measures people's subjective judgments.
Any of these extensions could succeed and any could wither away. However,
the combined wisdom of 133 people from 34 different countries is probably a
pretty decent window into the future.

*Professor Robert Connor (AKA
Domebase from Domebase.com). His research on domain name issues has been
reported by other publishers including Wired, BBC News, The Register,
the
Washington Internet Daily, the Internet News, Newsbytes, and the London
Financial Times.